


some sign of life

by louscr



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, M/M, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 08:22:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20702876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louscr/pseuds/louscr
Summary: "I don't—" Jon's voice shatters, chokes him with a mouthful of jagged shards. "I don'tcarewhether this is the only thing keeping me alive or not," he manages, voice barely loud enough for Martin to hear, but still unbearably sincere, "I have to do this and I want you to do it with me. I wantusto befree, Martin."





	some sign of life

**Author's Note:**

> had to write a martin said yes fic :)  
spoilers for mag 154  
posted on tumblr [here](https://archivizt.tumblr.com/post/187826343125/some-sign-of-life)

Jon is shaking with everything suspended between him and Martin, everything buried under so many months of distance bubbling to life in his heart. His chest still feels achingly empty, even after the statement, old and dusty in his ears, but underneath that part of himself that's _ other _ , he feels fear, and beneath even that, welling up like tears, is _hope_.

(_We could leave here _ , he had said, _ you and me. Escape _, and that had felt like a promise on his tongue, rolling and deliberate.)

He is closer to Martin than he's been in ages and it feels like relief. Except, this close, there is something about Martin that isn't fully there anymore, that looks as though it'd simply fade away if Jon tried to touch him.

Martin takes the step for him, grabbing Jon's hand gently, fingers cold against his feverish skin. 

"Don't make this my decision," he insists, head up and meeting Jon's gaze, sharp as steel as he squeezes their hands together a little tighter, a little warmer.

It feels as if there is a cliff in front of him, the unknown swirling up to consume him. Jon tries to breath past the fear, dropping his eyes to their joined hands and squeezing back. 

"I'm not—" 

Jon falters on the lie, and before he can correct himself Martin is speaking again, voice so full of hurt and _bitterness_, so different from what Jon has learned of it. "Besides, could you even _survive_ at this stage?" a second hand covers Jon's and they tighten once again, like a plea, "Is there anything else even keeping you alive?"

The question stalls Jon in his tracks, drags him back from that cliff face for only a moment before he can meet Martin's eyes again: memorizing their hue and slotting it in the corner of his heart that can still recall the echoing of Georgie's laughter.

"I don't—" Jon's voice shatters, chokes him with a mouthful of jagged shards. "I don't_ care_ whether this is the only thing keeping me alive or not," he manages, voice barely loud enough for Martin to hear, but still unbearably sincere, "I have to do this and I want you to do it with me. I want _us_ to be _free_, Martin."

(Jon doesn't think about how Martin's gaze had dropped from his halfway through speaking, doesn't think of the fear boiling in his chest. He thinks of Martin's cold hands still in his and that familiar, stubborn conviction seeping through his bones.)

The room buzzes with silence around them, and Martin is still, fading again at the edges, hands growing colder where they are slipping from Jon's. He aches to do something and break that stillness, to tug Martin forward and wrap his arms around him, but instead he just matches it, watchful and waiting as the distance between them grows yet again. 

"_Jon_." Martin whispers his name, soaked in regret and sorrow, an apology.

It shatters something in Jon to hear it.

He does not know what he says in reply. He only knows that it was soft and pitiful and pleading because Martin finally looks at him again and his eyes are full of tears.

"I _ need _ to see this thing with Peter through to its end. If even half of what he's saying is true, _I need to be there_."

"But what if you _don't_," Jon reaches out, can't seem to clutch Martin's shoulder as he tries to keep the patchwork of his heart stitched together, "We could just _leave_. I mean, whatever their plan is for me, I am damn sure that doing that isn't it. I'd derail _everything—we_ _could derail everything_, and then just _leave_!" 

He's speaking too loudly, his volume fluctuating as he panics, because even as he knows he must leave the Beholding's view, he knows he can't lose Martin, not again and not to the Lonely. 

(There is, Jon finds, replacing that deep emptiness where the he aches to know, a tumultuous tide of _desperation_ rising in his chest.)

(_He can't do this anymore_.)

He doesn't feel the hysteric tears on his face until Martin reaches out and brushes them away, ever so briefly solid again. Without thinking about it Jon's hand slips up, so he's holding Martin's still against his cheek. "Please, Martin," he whispers into the cold skin of his wrist, "_please_."

The silence stretches past that point, interminable, spanning what little distance there is left between the two of them like a strand of spider's silk. It sways in the office's stale air, moments slipping past it as if it isn't there clogging Jon's throat with more fear.

Martin starts crying moments before he jerks out of that hazy stillness, tugging Jon forward with that same hand, newly firm on his shoulder, and presses tight against him, their hearts thundering in time. Jon can barely _breath_ with the proximity, the warmth rushing through his veins even as Martin's skin chills him.

"Ok," he whispers into Jon's neck, near silent, "_together_."

He doesn't know which of their shuddering tears turn into sobs first, but they are together, and Jon can't truly find it in himself to care.

-

Jon spends hours tracing Martin's face into his memory beside the color of his eyes in the days after, as they slowly make their way towards the end. He charts the curve of his grin, the way the fog has stopped clinging to the edges of him like a nightmare. Catalogs the way Martin blinks at him when he's surprised; when he's tired. 

(There are countless things to love and observe about Martin. Jon dedicates himself to as many of them as he can, mourning the loss of those he can't.)

He thinks Martin is doing the same, when he catches his eyes in a quiet moment and they are both staring at each other as if they can't stop. 

He thinks he'll miss this, seeing Martin soft and comfortable and his.

He knows he won't miss the _hunger_.


End file.
